Gamasutra interview – Heckling Hecker

You’re familiar with Chris Hecker, the one who brought procedural animation to life with Spore right? The one that was accused of making Spore ‘cute’? Well Gamasutra has an interview with the former Maxis employee discussing his newest Indie project, SpyParty. During the conversation, Spore came up and Hecker once again shares his comments on the game:

Some people have attributed decisions to make Spore less difficult and scientifically accurate to you. How do you feel about the way the game turned out? What would you change, if anything?

CH: There are two parts to this question. First, did I somehow hypnotize Will Wright and make the game in my cute image? The answer to that is “no”, as Will, executive producer Lucy Bradshaw, and I have all stated publicly. Sadly, those statements didn’t get as much coverage as the inflammatory accusations.

The second part is harder. What would I have changed? Personally, I wish there was more consequence from the player’s choices in the editors. I think players could have explored various ecological niches by building different creatures, and gotten some firsthand experience at the idea of compromise and tradeoffs in a dynamic environment, and had a pretty compelling time doing that.

I kind of feel bad with the guy. He may of been on the cute side of the team, but he’s not the one to fully place the blame on. Although in the end getting laid off kind of worked out for him – he was planning on leaving eventually.